


breathe

by indecisively_yours



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: CSSS gift, F/M, Future Fic, Not So Festive Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indecisively_yours/pseuds/indecisively_yours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the weather's uncharacteristically not christmas and his mind's characteristically racing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breathe

**Author's Note:**

> my csss gift this year for theprincessofmisthaven over on tumblr!

****Spending time at the library over the years has helped Killian out more than he's realized. At this point only two thirds of the books are completely outdated—Operation Bookworm, as Henry cheerfully put it, helped modernize the selections (and school curriculum) over the years. He's learned about many things he never dreamed of back in the Enchanted Forest—driving a car, baking cakes in little miniature sizes with sugar on top, and pregnancy.

He's familiar enough with it from a distance. The memory of Zelena trying to steal Emma's brother, still fresh in his mind all these years later, now haunts him in his sleep. Except, it's not Dave and Mary Margaret he sees in that hospital room, grieving over the loss of a child only minutes old. In his dreams, the faces morph into different ones. He sees himself standing over Emma's bedside, cradling their newborn son—and in the blink of an eye he vanishes.

Each and every time he's helpless to stop it. Each and every time he wakes up from a broken and devastated Emma in his dreams to one comforting him back to sleep.

The books don't tell you how to get rid of those nightmares. They do however stress a state of readiness, especially so close to your wife's due date. (How the magic of this world can predict the date in which he'll see his son still baffles him, and he's been a part of it for quite some time.)

He's had her bag packed for weeks now; inside it he's packed a warm sweater of his that she's taken to more than he has, a toothbrush, some light reading material, and his hand—because as skilled as he was with his hook, holding his newborn son with it was not in best form. He's even learned to drive her bug, because walking and waiting for the single ambulance in Storybrooke was out of the question.

"Penny for your thoughts?" a calm voice carries on the deck of his ship.

Killian glances behind him as he leans against the railing of the Jolly, letting the smile that begins to form on his face reach his eyes. She's a sight, his Emma, two days shy of her due date with her golden hair blowing in the wind.

"You know, I always found that to be a quite trifling phrase, love. I hardly think my thoughts are worth so little," he says.

Emma rolls her eyes but approaches him all the same, wrapping the flowing cardigan around her as she crosses her arms. He leans down and presses a kiss to her lips and sighs, feeling the thoughts dissipate at the sensation of being whole again. It's the day before Christmas and with such warm weather for Maine, he suggested a trip out on the Jolly to distract her. Little did he know he was the one who needed the distraction.

"I don't need to read minds to know something's troubling you. What is it?" she asks.

He shakes his head, looking back out at sea. As her back rests against his chest, his arms instinctively go around her. She slips her fingers over his hook as her other hand, the one with the all too familiar ring, rests atop his own on the swell of her belly.

"I love you," he mumbles against her temple. "Have I told you that?"

She smiles, resting her head back against his shoulder. "If I kept track of how many times you've told me that, I think I'd have a library big enough to rival Belle's."

He laughs lightly, causing her to laugh too, and gods, he never wants to hear that sound go away.

"I love you, too," she says. Then, after a moment, when his thoughts have gotten away from him and his hand's tightened protectively over her belly (and their son), she asks, "Killian, what's wrong?"

His eyes don't flinch from the horizon, and when she cranes her neck to look up at him, she sees his jaw tense up.

"I'm waiting," he answers.

"For what?"

"The next thing that's going to threaten to ruin someone's— _our_ happy ending."

She stills for a moment before she leans up, pressing a kiss to his jaw. The tension, clear as day on his face, rolls off his body almost instantly. He buries his nose into her hair, sighing at the comforting touch only she alone could bring him.

They don't need to share a heart for her to know exactly what he means.

Her hand immediately tightens over his then, and she twists out of his body to look at him with shock in her eyes. He barely gets a second to ask what's wrong when she just says, "Killian—my water just broke."

He's never steered the Jolly back to dry land faster in his life.

-

/

-

He doesn’t want to say he’s watching guard as he occasionally looks out the window of the hospital room they’ve put Emma in—but he kind of is. So when she asks her for the twentieth time what he’s doing glancing out, him informing her that he’s just checking up on Henry isn’t completely a lie. He does happen to be checking up on their older son—who periodically gives him a thumbs up and a smile because he too happens to be on guard duty.

He also doesn’t give the glass a quick tap with his prosthetic hand when Doctor Whale walks into the room, checks up on Emma, and tells them, “It’s time.” Nope, not at all. He most certainly doesn’t glance back at the door twice once he’s slipped into the blue protective cover and ushered to Emma’s side.

“Look at me,” Emma says as she grabs his hand and reaches up to press her other against his cheek. He complies, silently. “There are no curses, no evil witches, no rulers of the Underworld that are going to take this away from us, you hear me?”

Killian nods mutely, right before he winces at the sharp grip and sudden tug of his hand as something courses through her and Whale tells her to _push_.

“You can grab onto this hand too, love,” he offers, and he swears he hears her mutter something about taking her heart back and replacing it with a monkey’s before she lets out a scream.

-

/

-

William Charles Jones, born three minutes into Christmas Day with bright blue eyes and dark hair to match his father’s, proves to be the best Christmas present despite the complete lack of Christmas cheer littering the hospital and the town.

When the door flies open to the hospital room, it isn’t a curse threatening to rip them apart or an evil witch looking for a newborn to enact a spell or a Dark One looking for revenge. It’s Henry, flanked by Dave and Mary Margaret, and little Neal trailing close behind while the Locksley-Mills family bring up the rear. It’s his family.

“See,” Emma says, reaching over for Killian’s hand once they’ve passed off baby Liam/Charlie (they haven’t fully decided yet) to Mary Margaret. “No one threatening to take away our happy ending.”

It’s anything but that. As they all coo and aw over his newborn son he realizes they’d all fight for hers (and by default his) because that’s what family did.

Maybe the Christmas cheer had already been here all along. Maybe it’s been here all year.


End file.
